Tracy Beckerman is Lost in Suburbia and trying to hold onto just a little bit of her former, COOL, pre-mom self!

My Life as a Game Show

About this blog

Nationally syndicated columnist and author Tracy Beckerman is \x34Lost in Suburbia\x34 ­ managing the chaos with a healthy dose of humor. Her next book, a \x34momoir,\x34 will be published in spring 2013. She contributes to many online mom sites,
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Nationally syndicated columnist and author Tracy Beckerman is \x34Lost in Suburbia\x34 ­ managing the chaos with a healthy dose of humor. Her next book, a \x34momoir,\x34 will be published in spring 2013. She contributes to many online mom sites, including www.todaysmama.com, www.rolemommy.com and www.newjerseymomsblog.com and is an official blogger for Lifetime Television's hit show, \x34The Balancing Act.\x34 She also does stand-up comedy and has appeared at venues including The Comic Strip Live in NYC and The Erma Bombeck Workshop in Dayton, Ohio. Before she became a columnist, Beckerman was a writer and producer in the television industry for 10 years, managing the advertising & promotion department at WCBS-TV New York. Tracy is married to a very understanding guy. They have two children and live in New Jersey where she writes, does battle with woodchucks and avoids, at all costs, driving a minivan.

“Fall has arrived and you know what that means. It’s time for everyone’s favorite game show, ‘Keep or Toss!’ I’m your host, Tracy Beckerman and today, my own family will be playing the game. So, Beckermans, are you ready to play?”

“No.”

“No? Why not?”

“Cuz we don’t know how.”

“Oh. Well it’s very simple. While you were all preparing to enjoy a lovely, chore-free Saturday afternoon, I went into your rooms and cleared out your closets and drawers. All of your clothes are now stacked in piles on your beds and floors. You have to spend your Saturday afternoon going through the clothes and decide what you will KEEP and what you will TOSS. The first one to finish wins an all expense paid trip to the store to buy new clothes.”

“That’s a stinky prize.”

“The loser has to put away all the clothes in the KEEP piles of the other two contestants.

“I guess I’d rather buy clothes.”

“Smart boy. Now here are the rules. Anything with more holes than a butterfly net gets tossed. Anything with stains that cover more than 50% of the clothing gets tossed. Anything that doesn’t fit you anymore and hasn’t fit you since you were in pre-school gets tossed. If an article of clothing has been mistaken for a cleaning rag, it gets tossed.”

“Is that it?”

“No! If it’s still in good shape, but out of season, it gets stored. If it doesn’t fit but it’s still in good shape, it gets donated.”

“So then how come we don’t call the game, ‘Keep, Toss, Store or Donate?’”

“Because that doesn’t sound like it’s as much fun!”

“None of this sounds like much fun.”

“But wait, there’s more!”

“Oh joy.”

“If you win the first round, you can choose to give up your trip to the store, for whatever is over there behind Curtain Number 3.”

“That’s not a curtain, it’s a fitted sheet.”

“Today it’s a curtain. Are you ready to play?”

“Does the thing behind curtain number three have to be folded or hung on a hanger?”

“You won’t know until you play!”

“I don’t like this game.”

Me neither. I want to play another game. Can we play Twister?

“No, we’re playing ‘Keep or Toss.’ Of course if you don’t want to play this game, you can play ‘Empty the Dishwasher and Reload it with all the Dirty Dinner Dishes From Last Night that Sat in the Sink So Long that the Leftover Food Hardened on Them and Now Has to Be Sandblasted off.’”

“That’s doesn’t sound like a fun game.”

“Tell me about it. So… deal or no deal?”

“I thought we were playing ‘Keep or Toss?’”

“It is ‘Keep or Toss!’”

“But you just said it was ‘Deal or No Deal.’”

“I think we should take a commercial break for Tylenol: Works great on even your toughest game show-induced headaches like the one I have right now.”